Google Android Blog

According to a rumour…HTC could be ready to make an announcement on May 6^th. An invitation to a product launch has been sent for a London venue on that date.

Let’s take this with a grain of salt though. Even though this would make sense, it is pure speculation.

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If you were counting on Google’s money to develop your first Google Android application, you better stop snoozing now! The deadline for the Android Developer Challenge I is next Monday, April 14th. Who’s going to get the money? The 50 most promising entries received before the deadline will each receive a $25,000 award to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards. Not bad!

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Probably mesmerized by the iPhone late last year, AT&T didn’t really showed interest in Google’s Android project.

But AT&T Mobility CEO, Ralph de la Vega, apparently changed his mind about Google Android and said at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas, “I like it a lot more than I did before.” He also added, “It’s something we would want in our portfolio”.

According to Associated Press his recent change of heart comes from meeting Google executives, who showed him that AT&T will be able to put its own applications on Android phones it sells. de la Vega said, “I think it’s going to be a good option for us and a good option for our customers”. AT&T’s executives probably saw a land of revenue opportunities unreachable with the iPhone!

Bloomberg is out with one hell of a long article looking at Google, Android, Microsoft, Yahoo and about any other related subject you can think of around this topic. I provide you below the opening two and last closing paragraphs to give you an idea for the flavor of the story - you should really set aside some time though to digest it. It captures very well the challenges Google faces getting Android to be viable.

On a chilly February morning, Andy Rubin hustles past equation-filled whiteboards in a two-story building on Google Inc.’s Silicon Valley campus.

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Could the mobile handset you see pictured at right be one of the first to run Google Android software? That is the word from a source as told to the IDG News Service.

IDG reports this phone is being developed by HTC and sports the code name “Dream.” This mobile, which reportedly will be out by year’s end, will be about five inches long and have a keypad which somehow pops out from underneath the large touchscreen.

HTC, of course, had no comment to IDG on the Dream rumors.

[via CrunchGear]

MIT is now offering a class that is wrapped around the new Google Android platform, which is in development by the Open Handset Alliance, and its major members like Google, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Open source and flexible, this new platform is getting a workout at the MIT class. Currently only allowing a few students of the more than 505 that wished to join, the class provides hands on experience with Google Android and what it can do, and what it needs to improve on. Seeing how Google Android really is the only Open Source platform for mobile phones it really is not hard to see why people would want to experience what it can do – most other platforms and operating systems are under lock and key, with no outside input. It is this very input that may make Google Android the most dominant when it is ready to go from spreading its wings, to soaring above the rest.

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Well, it’s just the beginning of 2008 and Sun Microsystems is pretty much unsure of what to do about the new Android platform, which in all likelihood could come to rival Sun’s own Java. It could, though this is just some speculation, split Java in half in a way. You see, Google Android apps are written in Java, and also Eclipse is used in the new platform. So, what is Sun’s official position on all of this? They are basically stating they are neutral about it because there just is not enough information out there. In the meantime they will continue development on their own platforms, one for microcontrollers and the other for other devices. Beyond mobile phones Sun has shown off the Sun-SPOT project and the Squawk project, both being used in robotics currently. In any event, Google Android will likely be an amalgam of many different contributors and parts of many open source projects

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DoMoCo has joined Google as a partner for the future OHA based Google Android project for providing mobile service (basically you get the Internet on your phone). They will be doing much more than that, as they will also work to design a user friendly interface and preloading applications with just the touch of a button. DoMoCo (do not confuse with brown Domo Kun who eats kittens) have i-mobile under its belt, which supplies internet to over 48 million cellphone users, and of course, combining Google Android with it would make for a massive jump in the number of people using i-mobile and Google search, Gmail, and of course more people using adwords and adsense. Of course there would also be Google Maps, and Youtube, and many more services that Google offers on just that one device. It would be using a great potential of the Google Android platform on Mobile Phones, and looks to be yet another threat to the dominance of the iPhone.

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas for the Open Handset Alliance. Their Google Android platform is maturing and growing up, it’s starting to go from crawling to walking, and the more mature phone platforms, such as Apple’s, are starting to shiver. Because of its stability now third party developers are starting to take interest and join, like Sybase. With their database skills and their infrastructure, should this go beyond verbal, they could provide the means for massive content distribution and other features for data storage that other mobile phone’s have yet to strike into. Their entire operation can provide efficient means for mobile phone based payments and also development of new applications, they can provide for the business model and the personal user model. The Google Android platform from the OHA could become the next playground for Sybase – and that’s a good thing.

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Verizon and AT&T have been responding to the news of the new Google Android platform and Open Handset Alliance in vague, rather not committed press releases which show exactly how far they’re willing to not go. Rather than AT&T joining the OHA, they’d rather sit on the fence with a giant pair of binoculars and try to see what it could mean for them – and their bottom line. Verizon? Well, pretty much the same thing – except they can’t afford the same binoculars. They’re using their hands pretending they’re a pair. Meanwhile the T-Mobile and sinking-fast Sprint have jumped on the OHA bandwagon in an attempt to save themselves – and they very well might do so. Seeing how mobile phones will change with this new platform, and the expanded features it will offer, the iPhone’s dominance may succumb to the Dream Phone. In the meantime AT&T will sit on its deal with Apple, and pray to the phone gods that they don’t get blasted to the wayside.

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